And on Monday, I'd used up all my use-or-lose leave, and it was back to work. However, I lucked out; they were predicting such bad weather on Monday that we had a delayed opening. Hey, anything that gets me more sleep is fine with me. And then of course I spent about an hour cleaning almost two-hundred e-mails out of my e-mail box. Of all of them, I had about twenty legit ones.

It was a long, long week. I did about three purchase orders and worked on modifications, but have a couple of things that I need to get out but have not gotten back with signature from the vendor, and I really, really want to get the process finished up. I had some bids that closed and one that, frustratingly, did not turn out. After being two weeks free of fluorescent lights, the ones in my office really packed a wallop when I got back; maybe I need to look into getting a torchiere lamp. It bothers me how lightheaded they make me. The two telework days were better, and during lunch I did get a start on taking down the decorations (well, I got the woodland tree down, cleared off James' game table, and made sure all the decorations in the immediate area were corralled in the library so I don't forget them), especially on the porch. I went out on that cold, cold day on Tuesday afternoon (the high was 26°F) to at least get the Christmas things off the porch (they're still in the foyer) and put up the winter wreath and flag, and took the lights and stakes and put them into the garage.

However, in better news, Willow has been improving slowly day by day. We have been cooking chicken with vegetables (sometimes with rice and sometimes without) for her (Wednesday we took some of the lean stew beef we had for supper and made that with veggies for her; needless to say she loved it). She's still thin, but she's lost that pinched look, and she can jump into James' chair again. I really lucked out finding that coat on sale for her, since she really needed it, having no fat padding right now, when the temperatures fell so low earlier in the week. She hated it, of course; had an injured look on her face each time I put it on, as if to say "I'm not some poodle dog!"

This is a Big Deal. When we brought her home Christmas Eve I thought for sure they'd let us take her home because they thought she was going to die and they knew we wanted her to do that at home. It is so nice to see her mooching for food again, and not looking so forlorn.

Finally it was Friday night! We had supper out at Panda Express, then went out to the Perimeter Mall Barnes & Noble to pick up my copy of Day of the Doctor. I ordered it when they did their sale in December, but there was some sort of glitch and I never got called to pick it up; our friend Alan works there, so I let him know and he made sure I got my copy at the sale price. Also picked up the P.L. Travers' bio, Mary Poppins, She Wrote.